The most luminous radio signals in the universe, most FRBs have been found in archived data but the first 'live' burst was detected at the
Parkes Observatory in Australia as recently as January 2015.
Develop your knowledge and skills in astronomy at CSIRO's
Parkes Observatory, home of the iconic 64 m Parkes radio telescope.
That year an undergraduate at West Virginia University, combing through hundreds of hours of archived radio data from Australia's
Parkes Observatory, chanced upon the first recognized instance of these ultrabrief, super-bright flashes of radio waves.
One of the biggest costs lies in booking time at radio telescopes, including at Australia's
Parkes Observatory in New South Wales and the Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.
It's about a five-hour drive inland from Sydney and is home to
Parkes Observatory.
Scientists using the
Parkes Observatory have recorded a handful of such events, but the lack of any similar findings by other facilities had led to speculation that the Australian instrument might have been picking up signals originating from sources on or near Earth.
Back on July 20, 1969, the raw video feed from the moon was beamed to the
Parkes Observatory radio telescope in southeastern Australia, as well as two other radio telescopes in Australia and California.
Up the Newell Highway lays the Australia Telescope National Facility,
Parkes Observatory: The Dish.
($299 pp; $199 as an add-on to the
Parkes Observatory Tour, at right.)